All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. - JOHN.
Spiritual interpretation
501:1 SCIENTIFIC interpretation of the Scriptures prop-
erly starts with the beginning of the Old Testa-
501:3 ment, chiefly because the spiritual import of
the Word, in its earliest articulations, often
seems so smothered by the immediate context as to
501:6 require explication; whereas the New Testament narra-
tives are clearer and come nearer the heart. Jesus il-
lumines them, showing the poverty of mortal existence,
501:9 but richly recompensing human want and woe with
spiritual gain. The incarnation of Truth, that amplifi-
cation of wonder and glory which angels could only
501:12 whisper and which God illustrated by light and har-
mony, is consonant with ever-present Love. So-called
mystery and miracle, which subserve the end of natural
501:15 good, are explained by that Love for whose rest the
weary ones sigh when needing something more native
to their immortal cravings than the history of perpetual
501:18 evil.
Spiritual overture
502:1 A second necessity for beginning with Genesis is that
the living and real prelude of the older Scriptures is so
502:3 brief that it would almost seem, from the
preponderance of unreality in the entire nar-
rative, as if reality did not predominate over unreality,
502:6 the light over the dark, the straight line of Spirit over
the mortal deviations and inverted images of the creator
and His creation.
Deflection of being
502:9 Spiritually followed, the book of Genesis is the history
of the untrue image of God, named a sinful mortal. This
deflection of being, rightly viewed, serves to
502:12 suggest the proper reflection of God and the
spiritual actuality of man, as given in the first chapter
of Genesis. Even thus the crude forms of human thought
502:15 take on higher symbols and significations, when scien-
tifically Christian views of the universe appear, illuminat-
ing time with the glory of eternity.
502:18 In the following exegesis, each text is followed by its spiritual interpretation according to the teachings of Chris- tian Science.
502:21 EXEGESIS
/Genesis/ i. 1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.